Fortunate sons: Spartans survive scare in season-opening win

Matt Charboneau The Detroit News Published 5:24 p.m. UTC Sep 1, 2018 East Lansing — Khari Willis doesn’t believe in luck. Neither does Mark Dantonio. So, maybe it wasn’t luck that helped No. 11 Michigan State come out of its season-opener against Utah State with a 38-31 victory, but there’s no doubt the Spartans are feeling fortunate they didn’t suffer loss No. 1 in the first week of the season. “Somehow, someway, we’re 1-0,” Dantonio said. “So things could be a lot worse. I’ll take it and our players will take it and we’ll never apologize for winning a football game. But with that being said, we need to do some things better. But that’s always been the nature of every game we play. You look at it and sometimes you play up and sometimes you don’t. So, we’ll keep pushing and take the next step.” BOX SCORE: Michigan State 38, Utah State 31 For a moment on Friday, it looked like the next step would be finding a way to rebound from a loss to a team from outside the Power Five. With just 5:05 left in the game, the Spartans found themselves trailing Utah State, 31-30, after allowing the Aggies to march 75 yards on 15 plays to take the lead. Instead of crumble, however, the Michigan State offense got rolling, getting a huge 31-yard grab from senior receiver Felton Davis to help set up Connor Heyward’s 13-yard touchdown run with two minutes to play. A two-point conversion… [Read full story]